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Exa’s people search lets you search over 1B+ professional profiles using natural language. The index is refreshed weekly and combines semantic search with structured attributes such as role, skill, company, location, and seniority. Read the blog post: Introducing Exa’s People Search Benchmarks
For agentic list-building and enrichment out of the box, use Websets →.

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When to Use

If you’re building:
  • A recruiting or talent-sourcing platform
    • Search candidates by role, skill set, location, or employer
    • “senior ML engineers in Seattle with PyTorch experience”
    • “full-stack developers with React and Node.js”
  • A GTM intelligence or sales prospecting tool
    • Find decision-makers and buying-committee members at target accounts
    • “VP Engineering at Series B fintech companies”
    • “enterprise sales reps from Salesforce in EMEA”
  • A professional services or consulting workflow
    • Map leadership and org charts at companies you’re researching for clients
    • “CTO at fintech startups in New York”
  • An AI SDR or outbound agent
    • Enrich prospect lists with up-to-date titles, companies, and career context
    • “product managers at Microsoft”

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Basic Usage

curl -X POST https://api.exa.ai/search \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "CEO of AI search startups in San Francisco",
    "category": "people",
    "type": "auto",
    "numResults": 10
  }'

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Structured Entity Metadata

People Search returns structured person metadata in entities for result rows that resolve to a person. Each person entity has type: "person", a stable id, a schema version, and a properties object with person profile fields. 
{
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "Jane Doe - VP Engineering",
      "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/janedoe",
      "entities": [
        {
          "id": "person_...",
          "type": "person",
          "version": 1,
          "properties": {
            "name": "Jane Doe",
            "firstName": "Jane",
            "lastName": "Doe",
            "location": "San Francisco, California, United States",
            "workHistory": [
              {
                "title": "VP Engineering",
                "location": "San Francisco, California, United States",
                "dates": { "from": "2022-01-01", "to": null },
                "company": { "id": "company_...", "name": "Example AI" }
              }
            ],
            "educationHistory": [
              {
                "degree": "BS Computer Science",
                "dates": { "from": "2010", "to": "2014" },
                "institution": { "id": null, "name": "Stanford University" }
              }
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
Try it now: People Search in the API Playground →